


A Peek Into the Shadows

by RingingSilence



Series: Princess Bride AU [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Implied Human Experimentation, Implied Manipulation, Princess Bride AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:40:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29769435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RingingSilence/pseuds/RingingSilence
Summary: Lady Nikola turned her vacant grin on him. "You see Jon, can I call you Jon? I happen to be studying souls and the body. It is my life’s work to understand what makes an identity.”--While awaiting his official coronation as Lord Magnus' heir, Jon is introduced to Lady Nikola and her experiments.
Series: Princess Bride AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2027389
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	A Peek Into the Shadows

Lord Magnus was as thoughtful and gracious a host as Jon could have hoped for. He was generally pulled away by business or other guests, but he made sure Jon knew he was welcome to ask the servants if he needed anything. Even though he was busily locked away in his study most of the day he always made sure to stop in and ask Jon how he was faring before he turned in. The honest answer was not well: he was unused to clothes and food and a _bed_ so fine and nightmares plagued him into the early hours when his anxieties for the future didn’t keep him out of bed. Jon was not, however, so unrefined as to complain so he assured his host that everything was perfect. Magnus would smile and say he was ‘glad to hear of it’, and perhaps recommend somewhere within the castle or its grounds for Jon to explore before leaving him once more. The only problem with him (and the main source of Jon’s nerves) was that he didn’t seem interested in actually teaching Jon anything about a lord’s duties. Whenever Jon tried to ask him he would wave off his inquiries. _‘You know plenty for our purposes, why don't you go enjoy yourself?_ ’ So Jon read and listened and did his best to imitate Lord Magnus when welcoming guests to the castle. Mostly, they met merchants or members of Magnus’ army but one day a party arrived that didn’t seem quite right. They wore bright clothes and brighter makeup and pinned Jon with blank, too-wide eyes.

“Oh, is this him,” the leader, bedecked in scarlet and gold hunting clothes, asked. Jon was transfixed as she strode towards him a little too stiffly, not quite limping but not walking smoothly either. He jumped when she roughly grabbed his chin to turn his face. “He’s not much to look at, is he?”

“He will serve his purpose,” Magnus replied lightly. “Do be gentle. It would be a shame to have to find another so soon.”

She tilted her head and let go. “Of course!”

“Jonathan, this is Lady Nikola. She was unfortunately exiled from her court and so will be remaining with us for the interim.”

“O-oh, I didn’t know courts could do that. What caused them to do so?”

Magnus’ prim smile turned down at the corners. “I don’t know how you did things on your farm, but here it is impolite to pry into another’s private matters. My apologies, Lady Nikola.”

Nikola just turned her vacant grin on him. “Oh no, it is quite alright! There is every reason to be curious. You see Jon, can I call you Jon? I happen to be studying souls and the body. It is my life’s work to understand what makes an identity.”

“That…that sounds rather intriguing, actually.”

“Right? Unfortunately, my fellow lords in the court didn’t agree. They called my experiments to separate people from their identities ‘disturbing’ and ‘unnatural’. Eventually, they threatened to burn me alive.”

Jon swallowed. “Ah, I-I see…and…how?”

She giggled. “Well, we started by trying to remove faces and replace them, but the subjects never became someone new. It was an easy mistake to make. Currently we are trying to separate the soul from the body with promising results, although none of the subjects has managed to survive intact thus far…”

“Yes, well,” Magnus interrupted. “For the time being we will host her and her attendants in a special bunker on the castle grounds. Exercise restraint around them please, and be a genial host should they require anything.”

Unfortunately, the conversation just served to pique Jon’s curiosity further. With nothing else to do, he found himself first subconsciously, then intentionally searching the castle and the gardens within the keep for the mysterious bunker. He tried to follow Lady Nikola and her unnerving coterie but somewhere within the twisting maze of rose bushes he kept losing their trail and needing to find the way back out himself. It was on one of these ventures that he discovered The Gate. It was a tiny thing, no bigger than a standard shield and hidden by a thick layer of roots from the surrounding shrubs and ivy, but once he noticed it he found his attention drawn to it. It was made of wood and layered in peeling dull yellow paint, but what caught his attention was the brass silhouette of a spider laid in the center of the portal. It took effort and the roses’ thorns cut at his fingers but eventually he managed to pry it open. He would have expected the air that wafted out of the lightless tunnel beyond it to be stale, but what hit his nose was warm and sharp with hints of wood smoke and some sort of spice. 

Despite the temptation, he put off exploring the tunnel for another day, kitting himself out with a torch, rope, and chalk. When he did finally step through the gate he was shocked to find not rough dirt walls or damp caves, but carved stone tiles and sconces set into the walls. The tunnels twisted and turned deep beneath the castle and even marking his progress with the chalk he still lost his way more than once. It was on one of these occasions, hunting desperately for any sign of his little chalk arrows on the floor, that Jon finally found Lady Nikola’s laboratory. 

It was a wide cavern, easily the size of Lord Magnus’ dining hall, and lit by lime lamps like a stage. The far side of the room in fact had a raised platform, upon which sat a chair surrounded by coils of rope and black cable. A tall water wheel sat behind it, turning idly beneath a trickle of water that echoed around the chamber. 

Footsteps reached him and Jon hastily set his torch in a sconce and ducked back into his shadowy corridor. 

“—Shame that we’ve had so few subjects to experiment with. I think Lord Magnus is just being stingy, what do you think?” Lady Nikola’s voice was easily recognizable. 

“Yes, my lady,” her attendant said hollowly.

“You’re right,” Nikola said, “we really do need to be patient. Once Magnus has what he wants, we shall have plenty of volunteers. Why, it will be even better than it was back home!”

“Yes, my lady.”

Their footsteps thumped on the wooden steps down into the amphitheater and Jon dared to edge forward so he could peek in. The pair went straight to the stage and got to work making measurements of the wheel. Nikola let out a satisfied hum. “This one will work, I just know it. All it needs is a volunteer to test it on and we’ll finally find the answer to what an identity is! After that, it will be a simple matter to move Lord Magnus’s from his current body into a new one and oh, won’t that be exciting! The secret to immortality, and I will have found it!”

Jon ran back the way he had come, barely slowing enough to follow his signs in his haste to flee the lab. When he finally emerged from the Gate, dirty and limping on a skinned knee, he tried to find Lord Magnus but the man had evidently gone to meet with an associate from the Lukas Trading Guild. He didn’t get another chance to speak with him, as the next day Jon was kidnapped from the garden.


End file.
